


Empire of Sand

by fransoun



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: But then again neither is Ratchet, Canon-Typical Violence, Drift is not a reliable narrator, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fransoun/pseuds/fransoun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Drift told his side of the story, Drift saved Ratchet (a lot), Ratchet <em>smiled</em> (also a lot), and there were lots of long, boring descriptions of swordfights that were really only interesting to Drift. And maybe Rodimus.</p><p>Ratchet's version goes a liiiiiittle bit differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empire of Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Please imagine this being told to an audience in Swerve's bar by Ratchet as he tries to wrest the figurines away from Drift and shout his version over the kid's.

"You can't _seriously_ be leaving them with the Galactic Council!"

 _Scrap_. Those _hadn't_ been the first words he'd wanted the kid to hear from him.

He'd actually been practicing those words - the _right_ words, the ones he wanted Drift to hear -  in the long weeks alone since he'd left the Lost Light. Talking to the miniature figurine standing on the shuttle's dashboard, the medic had run through every possible scenario he could think of as he'd piloted the two-mech craft through the empty blackness of space. Drift was _angry_. Drift was _hurt_. Drift had relapsed and was back on syk and circuit boosters. Drift had gone back over to the Decepticons.

And for each one, he'd imagined what the kid would say and then carefully rehearsed every one of his responses. Because what Ratchet had written on that note to Ultra Magnus for Ten was true - he was good with his hands but not with his words.

He would have been quite a sight if anyone else had been there to see him, arms waving wildly about and fingers jabbing emphatically at that little figurine perched on the dash, but Ratchet didn't care. These words were _important_. He had to get them _right_.

He'd gotten the chance once before, a long, long time ago, to talk to Drift. Once before he'd had a chance to _say_ something to the kid, something that _mattered_ \- and Drift had remembered what he'd said for the next four million years.

Ratchet had to get this right.

" _Ratchet?!_ "

Ah, yes. Stunned surprise. Ratchet had predicted that. After all, it had been - and here he felt that painful twist in his conscience again - almost a year since Drift had been exiled. If the kid had harbored any hope he'd be allowed back home, it would have long since crumbled into dust.

Ratchet found himself wondering if, in those first few days, Drift had waited to be called back. If he'd sat at the controls, staring at the comm system, hoping against hope that it would light up with a hail from the _Lost Light_. If as those days had turned into weeks, and those weeks had turned into months, he'd forced himself to look away, that hope turning to bitter ash in his mouth as the realization set in that he'd been cast out. Abandoned. Set adrift.

 _Again_.

Ratchet should have done more to convince Rodimus to let Drift stay. He should have come looking for Drift much, much sooner.

With an effort, Ratchet pushed those thoughts away - the past was in the past, and his guilt was of no help to the kid now. This had to be about _Drift_. What was it the kid always said to him? _Live in the moment_.

Ratchet waited patiently, just like he'd practiced, for the kid to pick his jaw up off the floor. Look at him. Being patient.

"How did...how are... _how?!_ "

Well, that was easy enough to answer. Deciding he'd waited long enough, Ratchet headed up the ramp. "You're flying an Autobot shuttle. There aren't too many of those around. I tracked you down."

He stepped inside the aforementioned shuttle. "What are you _thinking_ bringing that Decepticon - " Ratchet caught sight of the makeshift brig and corrected himself. There was more than one of them. Of _course_ there was more than one of them. " - those Decepticons here?"

But Drift would not be so easily distracted. "Yeah, no. How about we start with you first. What are you even _doing_ here?"

Ratchet took a deep breath. All right. Here it was. He'd been given another chance.

_He wanted Drift to hear all the words he'd said to Ten in the maintenance shaft as his medic hands had begun to move, picking up a white piece here, a red piece there. He wanted Drift to hear all the words he'd said as he'd shaped the gentle camber of that chestplate, the aerodynamic flair of those pauldrons, the delicate swoop of those finials. He wanted Drift to hear all the words he's said as he'd chamfered down edges and sanded down welds - and maybe, just maybe, Drift would even be surprised to see that he'd gotten every last detail of his greatsword right._

"Looking for you. I came to bring you back."

...well, he'd tried.

But something was wrong. Instead of opening up to him, like Ratchet had hoped, the kid shut down. His face went blank and _hard_ , as hard as stone, and he tensed, drawing in on himself, his plating clamping down all around him. When he spoke, his voice barely shook at all.

"I'm _exiled_."

Okay, so those hadn't been the right words, either. Worried, Ratchet hastened to reassure him. "For something you didn't do. I know you took the fall, Drift. You were following orders. Overlord, all of that, that's not on you. We _all_ know that now."

The kid didn't say anything. He just stood there, staring at the floor, fists clenched at his sides.

Maybe it would be better if they just got on their way. "Come one, let's go back. We'll take this lot to Cybertron where they belong - "

Drift looked up. If he'd been controlling himself before, he wasn't now. His optics blazed, and he took a step towards Ratchet. "And then what? Back to the _Lost Light_? Back to the Autobots?" He shook his head."No. I'm not going back, and these Decepticons aren't going back to Cybertron."

Ratchet could only stare. Somehow, in all of his scenarios, he'd never once considered the possibility that Drift would say 'no'.

He spoke slowly. "I'm...missing something."

" _I'm_ not," Drift snapped. "I'm making a difference out here, Ratchet. I'm saving people. Saving _lives_."

 _Just like you_. The words hung unspoken in the air between them.

"So I've heard," Ratchet finally replied, reaching up to tug at a frayed strand of cabling over his head. "You've been busy."

The kid had _definitely_ been busy, and oh, did it show. Ratchet hadn't activated any of his medic coding since stepping on board, but his passive protocols had been cataloging Drift's condition since Ratchet had first caught a glimpse of the kid standing at the top of the loading ramp. But he didn't need them to tell him that Drift was in bad shape. Concerned optics (and damn it, yes, Ratchet _was_ concerned - he _cared_ about the fragging idiot, and now that he'd finally admitted it to himself, he wasn't about to do it by halves) told him all he needed to know.

The kid was tired, battered, and filthy. His once pristine white plating had faded to a dingy beige, and his flaking red paint looked more like rust.That gently curving chestplate was badly scored now, dirt ground deep into the gashes in the metal. Underneath the caked-on grime, Ratchet could still make out the reddish scores Rodimus' fingers had left behind where they'd scraped across Drift's chest to strip him of his Autobrand. Drift's pauldrons were sleek and aerodynamic no longer, those thin pieces of  metal pounded out of shape by dents the shape of fists. One of those swooping finials had been brutally crushed, the fine point of metal crumpled down to a blunted tip. And sparks flew from his joints when he moved, his lightly armored frame providing little protection against the injuries that had stripped the insulation from his wiring.

And Ratchet didn't know what the kid had gotten up to since he'd - since they'd sent him away, but the medic would bet a round of drinks at Swerve's ( _that would be a nice thing to do with the kid when they got back_ , and Ratchet silently filed the idea away) that his injuries were worse than they should have been. Drift was taking risks, and he didn't care whether or not he got hurt.

"When's the last time you went in for repairs?"

"The shuttle's fine."

"I wasn't talking about the shuttle."

Drift scowled. "I _like_ this. I _like_ being out there doing this. _This_ is my path and I'm staying here until I rid this sector of _every_ rogue Decepticon there is."

Ratchet opened his mouth to reply -

"Good luck with that."

The medic turned. One of Drift's prisoners was leaning insolently against the bars, smirking through them at the two bickering Autobots. Drift pushed past Ratchet and approached him, stopping right in front of the cell. "What are you talking about?"

The prisoner's smirk broadened. "Decepticons. Way more than _you_ can deal you can deal with, _Knives_."

" _Where?!_ "

"Drop dead."

Ratchet held up his hand. "What if we take you all back to Cybertron?"

Drift whipped his head around to glare at the medic. "They're _not_ going back."

Ratchet sighed. "You want the information, and they don't want to be here. Simple." He turned back to the Decepticon. "Tell us what we want to know, and we'll take you back. No G.C."

" _Ratchet..._ "

The 'con made a show of considering Ratchet's offer. "So I tell you what you want to know and you get us outta here? I have your word?"

"You do."

"Then you can _both_ drop dead."

Drift's optics narrowed. Ratchet wondered if the swordsmech realized he'd started growling.

"I'm a Decepticon. I am strong, and I am powerful. Torture me, lock me up, I don't care. You can leave me to stew in a Galactic Council prison for a million years, but I ain't ever gonna rat."

Ratchet resisted the urge to roll his optics. After four million years of civil war, you'd think that the macho idiots would have gotten all of the ridiculous posturing out of their -

"I'll rat!"

Ratchet blinked.

"Can I rat?"

The two other prisoners - genericons, from the looks of them - shouldered past their comrade-in-arms to the front of the cell.

"Me, too! I'll rat, too, please!"

Ratchet addressed the one with the shattered optic. "You know what he's talking about?"

"Yes! There's a hideout, a Decepticon hideout - "

"Shut _up_!"

"You know where it is?"

"Yes!"

"You'll take us there?"

"Yes!"

Ratchet turned back to the kid. "There. Problem solved."

But Drift was still scowling. " _Not_ problem solved."  
  
"Look, you're the one that wants to hunt down Decepticons." Ratchet gestured towards the cell. "They know something. Maybe something big. We go there - _both_ of us - and we scout it out. If it's too big for us, we go get help. You want to make a difference, right?"

Drift pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, and Ratchet blinked again. For a split second there, he'd felt like he was staring into a mirror. He continued on, slightly more tentatively. "We'll take my shuttle and - "

Drift cut him off. "We'll take my shuttle."

"Your shuttle is - "

"I _like_ my shuttle."

Ratchet held up his hands. "Okay, okay. Your shuttle it is."

"We scout around. We take a look." Drift jabbed a finger at him. "Then you leave."

If the kid thought Ratchet would be giving up that easily, he had another think coming. "One thing at a time."

***

The journey to the planet passed in silence.

Ratchet tried to draw Drift out several times, but the swordsmech met every attempt at conversation with a curt, one-word response. Eventually, the medic gave it a rest. The kid could be just as stubborn as he could when he set his mind to it. If he didn't want to talk right now, nothing Ratchet could say was going to change his mind.

It took them only a couple of hours to reach the planet.  As it came within scanner range, Drift finally broke his silence.

"Not getting much of a readout of from the planet."

Ratchet snorted and looked down at his console. "That's because half your sensors aren't working. What _happened_ to all of this?"

Drift scowled. At least, he would have called it a scowl. Ratchet called it a pout. "Adventures happened, okay? Amazing adventures happened."

Ratchet wondered if the kid realized how much he sounded like his best friend.

Drift tapped a few controls on his console, and a hardlight projection sprang up between them, a flickering orb of glowing blue that represented the planet below. Drift indicated it.

"Light readings over here. Not much in the way of tech."

Ratchet felt himself relax just a bit. "If there's something there, it's not big." That was good. Ratchet had a strong suspicion he wouldn't have been able to talk Drift out of investigating no matter what they'd found, so the less they had to deal with on their own, the better.

"Let's get a little closer and set down. We'll scout out for a visual."

The next moment, everything was on fire.

***

Ratchet groaned and struggled to push himself up, his audials still ringing with the deafening screech of metal rending and tearing under impossible stresses. The impact had knocked his sensory subroutines offline, and his processor helpfully supplied him with its last few seconds of recorded data as it rebooted.

 _Blaring alarms and flashing red lights, the on-board computer alerting them to an emergency, as if there was a way they could have somehow_ not _noticed; the craft shuddering and twisting in his grip as Drift fought to control it -_

_"What's that?!"_

_"Something big!"_

_A brief thought spared on Drift's retort - had the kid always been this sarcastic? - and then came the second explosion, and Ratchet realized with the benefit of hindsight that it must have been the engine, and then blackness -_  
  
But his chronometer told him he'd only been out for a few seconds. He could feel the heat of the flames dancing merrily around him in the wreckage, but he couldn't get to his feet - something had fallen across his legs, pinning him there, and he couldn't _move_ -

\- _Drift_.

His visual sensors finally reset themselves, and Ratchet saw the swordsmech only a few meters away, but he was lying still and silent, optics dark, and Ratchet felt his tanks lurch as a sickening fear grabbed hold of his spark and _twisted_ -

\- _no no_ no _kid damn you don't you die on me don't you_ dare -

\- but then Drift's optics flickered to life and he clutched at his head and groaned - a new dent on the side of his helm showed he'd come into violent contact with the bulkhead during the crash - and Ratchet felt himself let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. He looked past the swordsmech to the cell behind him -

"The cell!"

The genericons were down, Ratchet could tell at a glance - anyone with a metal bar through their spark chamber wasn't getting back up again any time soon - but the third prisoner, the _proud Decepticon_ , was on his feet and wrenching the bars apart -

Drift followed his gaze and _moved_ , that damn lithe grace that Ratchet had always privately thought could give his hands a run for their money any day, shoving himself to his feet, yelling at Ratchet -

"Don't worry about that! Out - "

Drift grabbed hold of the beam pinning Ratchet's legs and _heaved_ -

" - _get out!_ "

Ratchet struggled free and ran, stumbling towards the hatch, somehow still sealed shut in spite of everything - Ratchet palmed the release without thinking, and when nothing happened, he lifted his leg, put all the weight of his reinforced medic's frame behind it, and _kicked_ -

\- the ramp slammed open and into the ground and Ratchet staggered down it, a cloud of thick, black smoke billowing out around him, and then movement caught his optic and he looked up at the top of the ridge in front of him -

\- _Decepticons_ -

\- _Drift was behind him, he wouldn't have seen them yet_ -

"Decepticons!"

Of _course_ they had a missile launcher.

The third explosion in as many minutes caught Ratchet and threw him off his feet. He landed hard, stones pinging off his plating.

He was getting too old for this.

But then Drift was grabbing him, arms wrapping around his waist, strong and sure, hauling the medic to his feet -

"Up!"

\- and the kid shoved him forward  -

" _Go!_ "

 - and Ratchet stumbled, but Drift was there, a warm presence at his back, steadying him, urging him onwards, and together they ran through the choking cloud of dust.

Halfway up the ridge they'd crashed beneath, in the meager shelter of the ledge on which they stood, Ratchet slumped back against the rock face and slid down to sit on the stone, vents flipped all the way open and fans whirring on their highest setting as he gasped for breath. He had just enough energy to lift his hands and make quotation marks in the air.

"'Light readings.' 'Not much in the way of tech.'"

"You know, you shouldn't live in the past. There is only the true moment in which we're currently living."

Ah, yes. That was what the kid always said. "You talk like that to deliberately annoy me, don't you?"

"Pretty much."

The kid was leaning out over the ledge, staring intently down at whatever scene was unfolding on the ground below. Ratchet caught the sound of voices and crawled forward to peer over the edge with Drift.

The proud Decepticon from Drift's brig was now surrounded by his fellows, but the reunion didn't look like an amicable one. He was down on his knees in the dirt while a blue horned Decepticon held a gun to his helm.

"They're going to kill him!" Drift whispered urgently.

"Better him than us," Ratchet replied grimly.

Drift looked over at him. "Better _none_ of us."

Ratchet stared incredulously back at him. "You can't be serious. Drift, there are five 'cons down there. _Five_. Plus one more who'll turn on you in a sparkbeat."

"I'm not going to stand by and watch an execution."

Ratchet resisted the urge to grab the kid by the shoulders and shake him. "What is this, some kind of death wish?"

Drift met his gaze evenly. "There's no point in living if you sacrifice everything you are to do it."

And then the swordsmech vaulted over the ledge and was gone.

Ratchet cursed. Stubborn, impetuous, thick-helmed idiot! Risking his life for a mech who'd sooner shoot him in the back than look at him. What the frag was he thinking, anyway? What difference did he think he was going to make -

_You were just like him once._

It had been his clinic. The clinic he'd opened back in the Dead End on Cybertron, four million years ago. Chief Medical Officer already and still chasing meaning, purpose, _fulfillment_ in his life. He'd opened the clinic to _help_. Forget the senators and their Primes - down there was where Ratchet could really make a difference. But that had been a long, long time ago.

Back when he'd still believed he could save everyone.

Ratchet swore again and leapt over the ledge after Drift.

Maybe Drift's hands had been taught to harm instead of heal, but the kid had found another way to help. And all this? This sector of space, overrun by rogue Decepticons? This was his clinic.  
  
The kid was already in trouble by the time Ratchet skidded to a halt at the bottom of the slope. Being noble of processor and pure of spark only took you so far against five-to-one odds, no matter what nonsense Drift might spout. His flashy sword work had done some good - one 'con had gone down with a sword in his chest, and another was rolling around on the ground clutching at his knee. But a third 'con had Drift in a headlock, and a fourth one had pinned his arm, wrenching it out and away from the swordmech's body.

Fortunately, Drift wasn't the only 'bot around here with a thick helm.

Ratchet grabbed the 'con trapping Drift's arm - square helm with a blue paint job - by the shoulder, spun him around, and slammed their heads together.

That...might not have been Ratchet's brightest idea.  
  
The 'con staggered back, clutching at his crumpled helm, but either Ratchet had hit him harder than he thought, or Ratchet's helm wasn't as thick as rumor had it. Ratchet staggered back, too, shaking his head in the futile hope that it would knock his visual sensors back online.

His optics finally flickered back on, but too late - Ratchet was caught by his aching head and spun around, and Crumpled Helm, together with his gun-toting friend Three Horns, bore him to the ground.

Ratchet struggled against the hands even as they pinned him to the dirt - he damn well wasn't giving up without a fight, even he knew full well it was hopeless - and managed to lift his head in time to see Drift twist his frame, prising Face Mask off his back and bringing him up and over his shoulder to slam him bodily into the ground. Drift pulled back his arm to deliver a follow-up blow to the chest -

\- Three Horns was apparently displeased by the amount of fight Ratchet was putting up, and his fist clipped the side of Ratchet's helm hard enough to make him see static stars.  Ratchet's fingers dug into the sand, and he braced himself for another blow -

" _Enough!_ "

Crumpled Helm's grip on his head let up, and Ratchet craned his neck back, looking up, up, all the way up to the looming shapes on the ridge above them.

The odds against them had just gotten a whole lot worse.

"Bring them. All of them."

 _Scrap_.

***

Ratchet was almost offended - no mode locks, no stasis cuffs, only simple metal manacles locked around their wrists and a single chain to link them all together as their captors marched them through the stone canyons of the desert. It was almost as if the Decepticons thought they weren't a threat.

Ratchet snorted quietly. They weren't exactly wrong.

He'd run a few self-diagnostic scans on himself as they walked and had gotten back the initial results. Surprisingly, between the shuttle crash and the ensuing fight, he hadn't taken too much in the way of damage. His frame sported a plethora of new dents of various sizes and shapes in some interesting locations, his paint job had been reduced to basically one giant, full-body scuff, and between the smoke of the explosions and the dust of the desert, his paint itself now matched Drift's beige and rust colors quite nicely. Underneath his armor, he had a few minor shorts and fuel leaks where wires and tubing had torn - all of them would eventually need repair, but none posed more danger to him than the enemies currently surrounding them.

He wished he could say the same for Drift.

He'd done as much as a visual inspection of the speedster would allow - which was to say, not much. His injuries appeared similar to Ratchet's - the medic could see the telltale pink of seeping energon in a few joints, but nothing flowing at more than a trickle. Hopefully Drift's self-repair would take care of them soon.

Not that Ratchet hadn't _tried_ to get the kid's attention to ask - he knew Drift would downplay his own injuries, but at least an answer would give Ratchet _something_. But the kid hadn't so much as looked at him since their manacles had clicked into place. Ratchet had done everything he could think of to get Drift's attention - pinged him over their internal comms, yanked on the chain connecting them, hissed his name loudly enough to get a warning shove from one of the guards. He'd even spent a couple of minutes deliberately kicking stones at the kid's heels, which had served as both an attention-getter and, if he were honest with himself, to relieve some of his building irritation with...well, everything, really.

And nothing. Drift hadn't so much as twitched. He just kept walking, head held high, spinal strut as stiff and straight as Ratchet had ever seen it. Every step was carefully placed, precise and perfect, and the speedster didn't acknowledge even the existence of Ratchet or the Decepticons around him with so much as a glance.

Until they rounded the final bend in the canyon.

Ahead of them, a giant stone structure had been carved out of the cliffside. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it to Ratchet's optics - he'd seen plenty of structures like it on other organic worlds - but something about it spurred Drift to speak, a soft word breathed through parted lips.

"No..."

The Decepticons marched them inside, down a long, dark hallway that opened onto -

\- a throne room, with a figure seated in the center.

It rose.

"Deadlock, how nice of you to join us. Now that you're here, we can finally tear this system apart...together."


End file.
